The Project On Government Oversight (POGO) Blog

Video: CBC Investigates Canada's Purchase of F-35 Jets

By ANDRE FRANCISCO

Canada is on the hook for $25 billion worth of F-35 Joint Strike Fighters. As the price for the jets continues to rise while questions mount on the effectiveness of the plane, some Canadians are questioning the process and decision to buy the F-35.

POGO's Winslow Wheeler, the Director of the Straus Military Reform Project of the Center for Defense Information, and defense expert Pierre Sprey appear in this investigative report from the CBC on the history of Canada's acquisition of the F-35.

Andre Francisco is an online producer with the Project On Government Oversight.

Pentagon's Testing Czar Questions F-35 Program Test Plan

By BEN FREEMAN Ph.D

The Project On Government Oversight is making public for the first time a memo from the Pentagon testing czar questioning the testing program for the Joint Strike Fighter, the military's most expensive weapons program.

As first reported by AOL Defense, the memo expresses the grievances of Michael Gilmore, Director of Operational Test and Evaluation at the Pentagon, regarding the Test and Evaluation Master Plan for the Joint Strike Fighter (F-35) program.

Amongst other issues, Gilmore is concerned about unduly rushing tests and limited funding for testing of the aircraft program.

“The plans for and content of testing must be determined by the data that need to be obtained to support a comprehensive and rigorous operational evaluation—not by budget targets set by the program office,” writes Gilmore.

POGO applauds efforts like this to ensure proper testing of military weapons. Cutting corners in F-35 testing is penny-wise and pound-foolish—the Pentagon may save a few million dollars now, but taxpayers will have to pay billions later. With a price-tag of $1.5 trillion, the F-35 is already the most expensive weapons program in history. The Pentagon should do everything it can to make sure these costs don’t continue to increase.

You can see the full memo below.

New Podcast: Winslow Wheeler on the Jet That Ate the Pentagon and Congress's Addiction to Defense Spending

Winslow Wheeler, director of the Straus Military Reform Project.

By BRYAN RAHIJA

Several POGO staffers recently sat down with longtime defense analyst Winslow Wheeler, the director of the Straus Military Reform Project and latest addition to Team POGO, to discuss a range of defense issues—everything from the jet that ate the Pentagon to Congress's addiction to national security spending. Have a listen:

• Download the latest podcast
• Subscribe to POGO podcasts via RSS
• Subscribe to POGO podcasts via iTunes (and don't forget to leave us a rating)
• Previous podcasts
  

You can read Winslow's latest work here. 

Bryan Rahija edits POGO's blog.

Follow @bryanrahija

Photo by POGO's Pam Rutter.

Key NDAA Amendments, National Security Edition: Bureaucracy, Bombers, and Flying Boondoggles

A B-2 Spirit bomber

By BEN FREEMEN, Ph.D. and MIA STEINLE

Yesterday, POGO called for congressional support of nine amendments to the gargantuan defense budget bill, the National Defense Authorization Act of fiscal year (FY) 2013. These amendments would result in savings without compromising security and / or would lead to more accountability for the government and its contractors. Here’s a look at the amendments that touch on national security generally—stay tuned for a look at those oriented towards government contracting and those that relate to the nuclear weapons complex.

Deferring Development of a Super High-Tech Bomber for Which There is No Urgent Need

If you owned three cars, all of which had many miles to go before the end of their lives, would you buy a fourth, top-of-the-line car? What if you were in debt? By, say, $15 trillion?

This is exactly the nonsensical spending plan the U.S. government is implementing, as the Air Force plans to spend at least $6.3 billion over the next five years developing a new long-range penetrating bomber aircraft. The thing is, the Air Force’s existing fleet of B-52, B-1B, and B-2 planes is undergoing upgrades and is expected to be operational for decades to come.

Nine Amendments for More Savings, Security, and Accountability in the Defense Budget

By BRYAN RAHIJA

Just yesterday, POGO sent a letter to the House of Representatives calling for support of nine amendments to the House's National Defense Authorization Act of fiscal year 2013 that would lead to more savings, security, and accountability. These amendments reflect many of the recommendations POGO made in its updated Spending Less, Spending Smarter report. 

In a nutshell, these amendments would:

• Prevent U.S. taxpayer-financed human trafficking
• Bring the amount that defense contractors can bill taxpayers for their employees' compensation down to a more reasonable level 
• Reduce funding for a billion-dollar nuclear boondoggle
• Defer development of a super high-tech bomber for which there is no urgent need
• Stop the rollback of oversight of nuclear weapons laboratories
• Replace the most expensive variant of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter with affordable jets that we already have
• Shed light on the true cost of service contractors
• Close a contracting loophole that allows contractors to NOT disclose costs that went into certain goods and services
• Trim the fat in the Pentagon's bloated bureaucracy

Good stuff, right?

We'll be taking a closer look at each amendment on the blog throughout the week. In the meantime—big ups to the following Reps. for their hard work and support on these amendments:

• Leonard Boswell (D-IA) 
• Mike Coffman (R-CO) 
• Gerry Connolly (D-VA)
• John Conyers (D-MI) 
• Keith Ellison (D-MN) 
• Hank Johnson (D-GA)
• James Lankford (R-OK) 
• Ed Markey (D-MA)
• George Miller (D-CA)
• Loretta Sanchez (D-CA)
• Jackie Speier (D-CA) 
• Paul Tonko (D-NY) 
• Peter Visclosky (D-IN) 
• Peter Welch (D-VT)

Get the full rundown on the amendments and their sponsors here, and stay tuned for more.

Bryan Rahija is POGO's blog editor.

Spending Even Less, Spending Even Smarter: Updated Recommendations for Nearly $700 Billion in National Security Savings

By SUZANNE DERSHOWITZ

Today the Project On Government Oversight (POGO) and Taxpayers for Common Sense (TCS) released updated recommendations for reducing wasteful national security spending. After analyzing the proposed national security budget, we crunched the latest numbers and this time our recs would reduce the deficit by nearly $700 billion from fiscal year (FY) 2013 to 2022—even more savings than before.

The House Armed Services Committee will mark up the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for fiscal year (FY) 2013 tomorrow, and the Senate markup is scheduled for the week of May 21.

Now that U.S. military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan is drawing down, it is clear that any serious proposal to diminish the U.S. deficit must include cuts to the national security budget.  According to the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), current national security spending is higher than at any point during the Cold War and accounts for more than half of all discretionary spending. Military spending at the Department of Defense (DoD) has nearly doubled since the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan began.

Our recommendations for smarter spending center on cutting flawed, costly weapons systems, canceling or delaying nuclear programs we don’t need, and limiting out-of-control contract spending. We found cheaper yet equally effective alternatives that won’t risk U.S. security. Read on for a rundown of the highlights.

The Jet That Ate the Pentagon

WINSLOW WHEELER

Cross-posted at Foreign Policy.

By WINSLOW WHEELER

The United States is making a gigantic investment in the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, billed by its advocates as the next--by their count the fifth--generation of air-to-air and air-to-ground combat aircraft. Claimed to be near invisible to radar and able to dominate any future battlefield, the F-35 will replace most of the air-combat aircraft in the inventories of the U.S. Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, and at least nine foreign allies, and it will be in those inventories for the next 55 years. It's no secret, however, that the program--the most expensive in American history--is a calamity.

This month, we learned that the Pentagon has increased the price tag for the F-35 by another $289 million—just the latest in a long string of cost increases—and that the program is expected to account for a whopping 38 percent of Pentagon procurement for defense programs, assuming its cost will grow no more. Its many problems are acknowledged by its listing in proposals for Pentagon spending reductions by leaders from across the political spectrum, including Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), President Barack Obama's National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, and budget gurus such as former Sen. Pete Domenici (R-NM) and Alice Rivlin, former director of the Congressional Budget Office and Office of Management and Budget.

How bad is it? A review of the F-35's cost, schedule, and performance—three essential measures of any Pentagon program—shows the problems are fundamental and still growing.

Will the Navy Find a New Aircraft that Can Replace JSFail?

By DANA LIEBELSON

The Navy has put out a call for a new fighter jet, which could potentially lead to finding a viable alternative to the most expensive jet of all time: the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF). As POGO has recommended in the past, replacing certain costly variants of the F-35 could save taxpayers tens of billions of dollars. If the Navy successfully finds a new aircraft, it could save even more—even though for now, the agency is denying that it’s actively looking for a replacement to the JSF.

According to Taxpayers for Common Sense and POGO's Spending Less, Spending Smarter report, the JSF program is costing taxpayers some $385 billion for development and production, and over the coming decades, it's going to require more than $1.1 trillion to maintain and operate. But the Pentagon continues to claim that the aircrafts are worth the price, because we can’t survive without them.

But these aircrafts are increasingly unaffordable. The costly B and C models have been beset with delays, found to have design flaws, put on probation, and grounded due to technical problems. Former Pentagon analyst Franklin “Chuck” Spinney told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram’s Bob Cox that the problems, when taken together, “are a showstopper."

Does that sound like a good investment? We don’t think so. In our Spending Less, Spending Smarter report we found that replacing the B and C models with the FA-18 E/F Super Hornets would save taxpayers around $43.64 billion.

From Comfort Capsules to Human Trafficking, Schwellenbach's Investigations 'Ahead of the Curve'

By DANA LIEBELSON

The "comfort capsules," as the Air Force so aptly dubbed them, had everything a discriminating world traveler could want: swiveling leather chairs, couches, wall-to-wall carpeting and a 37-inch flat-screen video monitor with stereo speakers, as well as other amenities a four-star general might need when flying on Uncle Sam's dime.

Heck, the chairs were even re-upholstered from brown to “Air Force blue” at a cost to taxpayers of $21,000 per four chairs. While the Air Force was spending millions of taxpayer dollars on these capsules, men and women on the frontlines were flying on torn-up netting.

After a Project On Government Oversight (POGO) investigation exposed the details in the summer of 2008, top military officials sputtered denials, and the news outraged Congress, which had twice told the Pentagon that the money needed to be spent on “higher priority” needs. The New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Colbert Report all followed the story.

It was an investigation that further strengthened POGO’s reputation as a Pentagon watchdog and helped make a name for Nick Schwellenbach, the 26-year-old  POGO national security investigator who unearthed the scandal.

For Schwellenbach, whose last day as POGO’s director of investigations is this week, exposing the comfort capsules was one of the highlights of his career, which has included investigating the failures of the military whistleblower protection system, spurring reforms in how the U.S. deals with human trafficking, and exposing cost overruns in the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter—among other things.

The Pentagon's Weapon Programs: Delivering Less, Later, for More Money

By BEN FREEMAN, Ph.D.

The cost of the Department of Defense's (DoD) major acquisition programs grew by $74.4 billion in the past year and now totals more than $1.58 trillion, according to a recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) report. And, this $74.4 billion is just a fraction of the overall cost growth in a DoD weapons acquisition portfolio that, on balance, is delivering fewer weapons for more money.

The defense acquisitions portfolio has been plagued by reductions in the number of weapons delivered, delayed delivery times, and enormous cost overruns. In fact, the total acquisition cost of this portfolio has grown by $447 billion, 40 percent above initial cost estimates.

More Bucks, Less Bang

Despite the cost growth, many of these programs, will deliver fewer quantities of weapons (e.g. fewer numbers of planes). Because the total cost of these programs is divided over fewer quantities of weapons, there has been an average 46 percent increase in the per unit cost of the 38 major weapons programs for which the GAO provided baseline and currents estimates of cost and quantity, according to a POGO analysis.  

With increasing costs, even if the quantity of purchases don’t decline, the military is getting far less bang for each buck it spends. For example, the cost of each Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) on average has increased by more than $257 million. With 55 of these ships set to be procured, this increase will cost taxpayers more than $14 billion. Similarly, the cost of each of the six satellites in the Space-Based Infrared System (SBIRS) has more than tripled – increasing by more than $2 billion each.

This was a major problem during the past year, as the GAO report noted, “Over 60 percent of programs have lost buying power in the last year—as measured by an increase in program acquisition unit cost—depriving DOD of funding that could have been used for additional quantities or other priorities.”

The F-35 is perhaps the highest profile program where U.S. taxpayers are seeing a price tag spiraling out of control. According to the most recent DoD figures, the costs of acquiring the F-35 are now $395 billion - nearly double the baseline estimate. But wait until you hear about the unit cost increase. Several years ago, earlier in the JSF program, the military reduced its planned buy of JSF planes by 409 aircraft from 2,866 planes to 2,457. Accordingly, the unit cost has more than doubled from $74.5 million to just over $160 million.

JSFail? Not When the Pentagon Grades the F-35 on a Curve

By BEN FREEMAN

Just when you think the bar can't be any lower for the most expensive weapons program in history, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF), the Pentagon lowers the bar.

Last month, the Pentagon's Joint Requirements Oversight Council (JROC) lowered performance requirements for the JSF, helping the plane to meet milestones it had previously missed.

According to Inside Defense, which first reported the issue, JROC relaxed the performance requirements for the Air Force F-35A variant's combat radius and granted "the Marine Corps F-35B nearly 10 percent additional runway length for short take-offs.”

The Pentagon's JSF Selected Acquisition Report (SAR) from December 31, 2010, stated that the F-35A variant had a combat radius of 584 nautical miles—6 nautical miles below its key performance parameter of 590 nautical miles. So rather than modify the design to add fuel capacity, as was suggested in the SAR, the Pentagon instead lowered the performance standard. What happened is actually quite subtle and on the surface appears to be a strengthening of this performance goal, i.e. an extension of the combat radios to 613 nautical miles. However, "to extend the F-35A's combat radius," Inside Defense reported, "the JROC agreed to a less-demanding flight profile that assumes near-ideal cruise altitude and airspeed, factors that permit more efficient fuel consumption" [emphasis POGO's].

Inside Defense also noted that "the estimated combat radius of the short-take-off variant, which is being developed for the Marine Corps, is 15 percent lower than the original JSF program goal even though the aircraft is slated to carry fewer weapons than originally intended."

As David Axe wrote for Wired’s Danger Room, JROC “gave the F-35 a pass that was apparently designed so the over-weight, over-budget, long-delayed stealth fighter could avoid yet another embarrassing scandal.” 

Tom Christie, a veteran defense insider and former top weapons tester at the Pentagon, says, “This is typical. We’ve seen this happen time and again. You [the Pentagon] paid the contractor to deliver a capability. Then, all of a sudden, they tell you you’re not going to get it. And you just say we no longer need that capability.” The worst part, according to Christie, is “there’s no penalty for anyone.”

Ben Freeman is a POGO investigator.

Follow @BenFreemanDC

Image via U.S. Air Force.

Budget Breakdown: Rolling Analysis of Obama's FY 2013 Budget

POGO BUDGET COVERAGE Nuclear security:  Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement-Nuclear Facility Uranium Processing Facility B61 Life Extension Program Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility Weapons programs: V-22 Osprey Joint Strike Fighter Littoral Combat Ship M1 Abrams Aircraft carriers Ground-Based Midcourse Defense System Space Based Infrared Systems Other national security matters: Troops in Europe Service contractors Investing in oversight: Government Accountability Office (GAO) Office of Special Counsel Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Commodity Futures Trading Commission

By POGO STAFF

Update (Tuesday, Feb. 14): POGO will continue to publish budget analysis on this post today.

Today, POGO will be offering rolling analysis of President Obama's Fiscal Year (FY) 2013 budget, which is available here. The budget is a blueprint for the initiatives the President would fund if he was unconstrained by Congress. Congress may use the budget as a starting point for appropriations, but also has the capacity to ignore Obama's suggestions and will likely change some of the levels of funding if it passes appropriations bills for FY 2013 (Congress has had trouble doing so on time in some years).

To kick things off, POGO has obtained an early copy of the Pentagon's FY2013 "Program Acquisition Costs by Weapon System" document.

POGO has extensively outlined areas for defense spending cuts in our Spending Less, Spending Smarter recommendations, jointly prepared with Taxpayers for Common Sense. A summary of the most important items we are looking for can be found here. We also have giant bull’s eyes on several nuclear weapons-related programs such as a massive new Energy Department project at Los Alamos National Laboratory, and some troubled weapons programs such as the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and the Littoral Combat Ship.

We’ll also be looking for signs of a reduction in spending on service contractors. In our Bad Business report released last fall, we estimated that for 35 comparable job occupations examined, service contractors cost taxpayers on average nearly twice as much as in-house government workers (for a discussion of data and analytical limitations in our report, go here).

Finally, we think it’s vital that President Obama invest federal spending transparency and in the nation’s watchdogs: the Office of Special Counsel, the Government Accountability Office, and the Offices of Inspectors General—an analysis of these budget requests on these watchdogs will come later this week.

Check back for more on this page throughout the day!